I’ve been thinking about worship and the implications of our being created for worship. See the gift is always a gift until we let it become the curse. And though some have been gifted with the calling to lead people into worship, I’m a firm believer He made us all with a deep desire to worship. And the hope is that we’d bring our worship to Him and Him alone.

There’s this part in the book of Isaiah which talks about the foolishness of idolatry. Idolatry which yes, they describe as being ordinary objects like wood, or metal. Something we might quickly overlook, but I wonder. I wonder if wood is like relationships and metal like circumstances, or any other thing I’d choose to hold tightly in my fist, pick up some tools and make an object of. If we’re really honest here, we’d take it further just one step, and forget to create the object unless it’s worthy enough to be objectified; a woman, a man, a position or possession.

Because the gift of worship is a gift until we worship the created rather than the Creator. As though the husband or the kids, the mountains, sex, food, or ‘stuff’ deserves more than we give the king.

And though it isn’t wrong to cherish the people and things we’ve been blessed with, I wonder how often we find ourselves thirsting for worship, but holding a lie right there in our hands.

That’s what Isaiah’s trying to get to here; he says “he feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside; and he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?'”

I guess my heart got stuck right there because it’s all too often I’ll find my heart, eyes and mind focused in on worshipping the wrong thing. No, I never intend to worship family, home or comfort the ways I sometimes do. Nor am I alright with it when I recognize my wayward sort of ways. I won’t allow guilt to make my stumble a fall, but I will allow the conviction to get right into the cracks of my heart and repair what I’ve allowed to become a hole.

Because we were made to worship Christ our King, we will forever crave to worship. I know too well from my own little life, this gets tricky when God blesses us with much. Even more so when the enemy tempts us with the lies of More.

My fists, even your fists, are filled or even filling now. And I’m stuck here thinking about worship, and letting it all run loose while I praise my king. At the beginning and end of every day, He is the one blessing me, and I refuse to continue being the one who is simply taking away.